Author's Notes: Yay for present tense! Yeah! I'm not a huge fan of present tense, but that's what this turned out to be, after writing the second paragraph. Something about this is different from my usual style, but I can't quite put my finger on it. Maybe it's the present tense... Anyway, I finished this up about half an hour ago, so if you spot any mistakes, please let me know (my proof-reading includes a once over, so mistakes are inevitable). And for those of you who remember my promise of shippiness from last installment... this is not the one. I was planning on uploading a different chapter before this one (as this wasn't even written four hours ago), but this one was begging to be written and I couldn't help but comply. Next time, I promise!

You know, thinking about this story, I really think I poured myself into Toph. I'm nothing like Toph, but she does a few things I know I would do. Maybe she is the one influencing me... Well, at least I know that we're both short! Oh, and... Happy birthday, self!

Please review, I appreciate every one!

Alisa

Just Him and Her

Size

It is the strangest revolution, one that makes him stop and blink and open his eyes, because really, who would have thought? She's Toph, after all, the tough girl who can take down as many soldiers as a full-grown army officer (and probably more), the Greatest Earthbender Ever, this amazing person who always manages to take him out in hand-to-hand combat even though he's the one who can see. She is the one who's tough and strong and sturdy and all these other things that make her seem larger than life, but, he realizes in a burst of sudden and frightening understanding, Toph is tiny.

Tiny seems like an understatement, really. With her wrist fitting comfortably in his curled fingers, her pulse beating a steady rhythm in his palm, it strikes him profoundly how small Toph actually is. He can't seem to recall why he grabbed her wrist in the first place now, because all he can see is how little she looks next to him, how little her hand looks next to his. In fact, now that he's noticed it, everything about Toph looks tiny. From her feet to her nose to her waist, every part of her seems small. It amazes him how he's never seen it before.

She's saying something (tiny lips), but he can't seem to get himself to focus on the words. The idea of Toph as anything but giant is slow processing, and he can't seem to wrap his mind around the concept. She's tugging her wrist away now, and the smooth skin rubs past his fingers (when did they get so big?). Hands (little hands with tiny fingers) move to her hips (not quite so little anymore) as she assumes a pose picked up from Katara, and there she is, standing in front of him, no less than a head shorter. He imagines he could crush her if he ever hugged her too tight.

"Sokka!"

His name, uttered in a voice anything but tiny, sounds sharp to his ears, and bold. His ears pick up and his eyes focus on Toph's face, which is set in a thin frown. Her foot is tapping and he knows he's got her in an annoyed mood now.

"Yes?" he asks conversationally, folding his arms across his chest because he doesn't like it when they hang pointlessly at his sides.

Toph blows her bangs out of her face with a gust of air to indicate her irritation and says tartly, "Why'd you stop me?"

Sokka blinks, confused for just a moment, then says, with a half-chuckle, "I'm not quite sure myself."

She throws her hands up in the air and sucks in breath for what is surely to be a spectacular display of her lung capacity, but Sokka decides to nip this in the bud before anything unwanted can bloom.

"You're little."

So perhaps it wasn't the best thing to say, but better the look of absolute confusion on her face than rocks in his.

"I'm... what?" she asks, and he can almost imagine pink flushing across her cheeks, if Toph was the type to blush. She's tight in her stance, confused and not quite sure whether she should be insulted or complimented, though he thinks she's going with insulted by the way she's glaring at him.

"You're little," Sokka repeats, and it sounds funny even when he says it out loud. "I've never noticed it before," he continues, weighing his words, "but you're not... big. You act big, but really, you're not."

She's slipped into an Earthbending stance—subconsciously, he's sure—and is giving him the most adorably bewildered look he has ever seen. It reminds him vaguely of a baby tiger-seal.

Trying not to laugh at the way she's staring at him, he takes the hand nearest him—her left—as it curls in her stance and pulls her near him. She protests halfheartedly, but he ignores her complaints as he spreads her fingers out in front of him. He presses his palm against hers and lines his fingers up with the tiny ones attached to her hand.

"See?" he says, twitching his fingers slightly so she can feel the last knuckles of his fingers bending over her tips. "Little."

She flexes her fingers hesitantly against his own, then pulls her hand back quickly. She folds her hands into her armpits as if to say he's not allowed to touch and then informs him, "Maybe your hands are just big."

Sokka extends his hands in front of him and inquires of them a speedy examination. "Nope," he mutters, now studying the heels of his hands. "I'm pretty sure it's just you. You're little, and that's all there is to it."

Little lips form a full pout, and she says sourly, "Just 'cause I'm little doesn't mean I couldn't kick your sorry butt."

He chuckles, half in amusement and half because he knows what she said is true, then yelps when a small pebble connects with his forehead. He looks down to find her smirking, arms now crossed comfortably across small breasts.

"You're short, too!" he adds brightly as he rubs his forehead, simply because it will annoy her, and he can tell it does when she stands up just a little straighter.

"I am not," Toph protests, sounding defiant like she did when she was twelve. "I'm nearly as tall as Katara."

Sokka snorts. "I don't think you're up to Katara's nose yet."

She stomps her foot despite her age and insists, "I am taller than that!"

He smirks leisurely and places a hand on each of her shoulders. "Let's just find out, shall we?" he drawls, and pulls her close until the tips of her dusty toes are touching his leather shoes and she's leaning away so her crossed arms won't dig in to his ribs.

"There," he says, brushing fingers against her head and measuring her up to his chin. "I'm a head taller than you. That makes you short."

She unfolds her arms to give him a light shove in the chest and says, "Maybe you're just freakishly tall. Ever thought of that?"

A grin breaks out on Sokka's face and he swings a lazy arm around her shoulders. "Maybe you're the one that's freakishly short. Ever thought of that?" he questions teasingly, squeezing her shoulders so that her elbow digs into his hip.

"I hate you," she mutters, but there's so little conviction in her words that Sokka can't help but laugh.

"Don't worry, shorty," he says, amusement lining his voice. "It doesn't matter to me how tall you are—you'll always be Toph."

"Thanks for that reassurance, Meathead," she snorts. "It's so comforting to know that I'll always be me."

Sokka fights not to roll his eyes and instead rumples her hair with a free hand, saying, "And it's so comforting to know that you'll always be your sarcastic self."

"Hey, it's what I'm here for," she says smoothly, slipping out from under his arm and grinning up at him coyly. Then she punches him in the arm, hard.

"For calling me short," she explains, and walks off, smirking to herself with that triumphant little smirk that he's fallen so in love with.

Sokka sighs and crumples to the ground, testing the tender area of his shoulder where her fist made contact. It protests at his touch and he is amazed once again at her strength.

He watches her walk away. There is a bit of a strut in her steps, and he notices that this new walk makes her hips move from side to side, just a little. He tries to think of what she would do to him if she knew what he was thinking just so that he might keep the smile from his face, but it doesn't work very well and he instead buries his face in his hands.

It is strange, he thinks again as he stares at his fingers, that he has never before noticed just how little Toph is. When she's with him, she seems anything but little—with her bold, capturing personality, it's as if she fills his entire world to the very corners. But just feeling her thin wrist under his fingers, it made him realize that she is hardly big at all. Quite the opposite, in fact. He imagines that if she were to ever allow him, he would gather her up in his arms and she would fit perfectly, with her head tucked under his chin and her legs drawn into his lap. It would look quite odd, of course, for a grown woman to be sitting in his lap, but he wouldn't mind because it would be Toph and she would fit.

Toph is just... he doesn't even know how to begin with her. So strong, so sturdy, so unmovable, so very Toph, but at the same time, so tiny, so delicate, so very small. Now more than ever Sokka feels the urge to protect her, this little woman who is more than capable of protecting herself. Seeing her, this living oxymoron (a tiny blind woman as the World's Greatest Earthbender Ever), amazes him.

Maybe that's why he fell in love with her.

Or maybe it's her smile.

Or maybe—and he thinks it's this one most of all—it's the way she doesn't let anything stop her, not her size, not anything.

Maybe it was that feeling of her wrist in his hand.

Sokka realizes as he looks up to find Toph above him, offering him a hand and a smile, that although she may be little, she means the entire world to him.